A chara, - The name of Sean MacBride keeps cropping up in your paper. He is usually being blamed for something or other. A few weeks ago you were implicating him in the Supt William Geary affair. On April 17th Dick Walsh had "discovered" that it was MacBride who had "set up" John A. Costello to announce the impending amendment to the External Relations Act while in Canada. In your edition of April 24th Garret FitzGerald excoriates MacBride because Ireland did not join NATO in 1949. Our ex-Taoiseach accuses the then Minister for External Affairs of an ill-judged plot to blackmail Britain.
Dr FitzGerald cannot accept that MacBride was in a minority position in that coalition government where the majority partner was Fine Gael. As David McCullagh points out in his excellent book, A makeshift majority - the first inter-party government 1948-51, only matters of which Fine Gael approved received government support. It is true, unfortunately, that both the declaration of the Republic and our non-participation in NATO have served to bolster partition. But Garret FitzGerald's complaint should be with his own party and Taoiseach John Costello. Sean MacBride is a much safer target, it appears. - Yours, etc., Anthony Jordan,
Gilford Road, Dublin 4.